Balance Board

When he’s not winning gold medals or hitting the slopes, most of Shaun White’s time is spent at the airport gate. That’s what Gabe Graziani, community developer, for Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage told me.

That’s why the hub world for the extreme sports sequel is set in a terminal. Trophies and souvenirs littered the floors. An arcade cabinet is set against a back wall. A jet stands ready to whisk players off to one of nine countries.

“We want to make people have the life of a pro snowboarder,” he said.

In the sequel to last year’s Wii title, Ubisoft Montreal decided to build on the solid Balance Board gameplay and create a game with more customizability. It works on the surface and gameplay level. In terms of looks, players can change their characters’ clothes and add new touches to their snowboard. There’s 53 board design and an option to place different stickers on them.

When it comes to gameplay, players can now customize their own tricks. Using the Wii MotionPlus, players can control how their character’s spins and grabs, creating their own unique move. The new trick will replaces an old one, but it’s a feature that lets players feel as if they own one of the 13 set characters. Unfortunately, players aren’t able to share moves.

I didn’t have a baby lying around the house so I used the next best thing: a dog. Last year, I wanted to test out Wii Fit and the new Balance Board so I decided to weigh my mutt. I created a hideous Mii, named it Bitsy and made my pup lie down on the device.

Unfortunately, Wii Fit said my dog was morbidly obese. I’m sure her age (I used dog years) and her height (under 2 feet) factored into that result.

But with Wii Fit Plus, things have changed and one of the biggest updates, according to me, is puppy support. The game now lets you weigh your dog, create an avatar for it and add it to the Wii Fit Plaza. All you have to do is weigh yourself and then weigh yourself again but this time carrying the dog. You can also do the same thing with a baby if you are so inclined.

It’s been more than a year since the Wii Fit descended on the American public and went on to sell like hot cakes. As of March, the game has sold almost as many units (18.22 million copies) as PlayStation 3s worldwide.

So what does Nintendo do for an encore? Well, it’s coming out with Wii Fit Plus. The follow-up to the fitness game features the ability to transfer over your data from the previous game to the new one. It also has six new strength training and yoga exercises and the ability for players to customize their routine and target certain areas of their body for a workout.

After what seemed like an eternity, I got myWii Fit and Balance Board a few months ago. While I love the game, I was eager to find something other than workouts for the balance board.

We Ski and Snowboard was an ideal choice for me. Skiing, to me, is an activity that is better in concept than reality. I was very excited before the first and only time I hit the real slopes. Then I got on my skis. After that, all I could think about was how I was going to break my leg. So, this game was a way for me to be a cool snowboarder without having to rush to the emergency room.

While I had a good time choosing my perfect ski outfit, my husband was more anxious to get going. The game offers play with either the Wii remote and nunchuk, or the Balance Board. We discovered quickly that the Balance Board is not only easier, but more fun. My husband picked it up quicker than I did though. He thinks that having spent a good amount of time on a skateboard in his youth made it faster. Having not had that, I took my time but found that I certainly enjoyed it. My husband liked the remote option better, but I really struggled with it and stuck almost exclusively with the Balance Board.

By all accounts, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party has the first minigame you can play your butt. No this is not a joke. But that’s what seems to happen when Ubisoft Paris gets its hands on Nintendo products.

They find interesting ways to use them. Remember the first Raving Rabbidds game? That was hit, and in the latest edition, TV Party, the team showed me three minigames they’ve been working on.

In Beestie Boarding, players sit down on the Wii Balance Board and shift their weight left and right to maneuever in Beestie Boarding. Think of it as snowboarding atop a wildebeest going around 30 mph.

If players manage to shimmy their behinds off a ramp, the game goes into a tricks mode where they have to wave a remote and nunchuk in different directions to perform flips and ollies. It’s a pretty silly game, but that’s a strength to the series.

The other Balance Board game in TV Party is a little more conventional. In Sky Surfing, players are shot out of a cannon and travel through space on an ironing board. In the air, they have to lean left and right, trying to guide the board through rings in the air.

Being in space, Sky Surfing adds a third dimension to the minigame, and by leaning forward, players can send their board down and by leaning back, they can go skyward.

One of the better games on Wii Fit was the skiing. You stepped on the Balance Board and leaned left or right, forcing your character to slalom down a hill. It took a while to get used, but it was a fun little game.

Well, NamcoBandai takes that concept and apparently moves that one step further with the announcement of We Ski. This game uses the Balance Board and the Wii remote and nunchuk for I presume the pole stick thingies(yes, I know nothing about skiing).

According to NamcoBandai, you can your own Miis or customize one of Namco’s own characters. In addition, the game allows up to four players on a single split-screen. If they can make the experience realistic enough, We Ski may be a nice post-Wii Fit pick up in the spring.